Orange World
Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In “Bog Girl,” a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog.
In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection.
The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.
Praise for Orange World
“A feast of invention and a fun house of surprising wisdom, Orange World contains a ghost-ship lodge, tourist trade in a post-apocalyptic drowned city, a tornado farm, a local succubus. Karen Russell moves from the farcical to the forbidden with tender conviction. Don’t miss this book of marvels!”
Louise Erdrich
“Karen Russell’s latest, Orange World (Knopf), is another set of masterpieces in miniatures . . . proving her worthy of her reputation as one of our most entrancing storytellers.”
Vogue
“Brilliant… Stunning… Her imagination is boundless.. .Russell’s last book, Vampires in the Lemon Grove was far and away one of the best books of 2013, and Orange World proves that the author has only gotten better… Russell is one of the most original American authors working today. She’s also one of the best. Orange World is a thing of beauty, a stunning collection from one of the most brilliant literary minds of her generation.”
Michael Schaub, NPR
What’s really spooky about [Russell’s] books is her near supernatural mastery of the written word… Her terrifying and wonderful fourth book, Orange World, is a volume of short fiction that ingeniously interweaves humor, horror, and the joy and absurdity of everyday life.”
Leigh Haber, O Magazine
